Last night, Linux Torvalds visited me in a dream. He instructed me to gather interview questions here. Post your questions below; I will commit the ten highest-rated to memory. Torvalds will return to my slumber at some future date and answer them. (How I yearn for Him to again disturb my bed-chamber!)

I settled in my bed-chamber last night after an unusually salty meal of Grape Soda and roasted cock. At first, my dreams were nothing unusual, consisting of me being chased by monkeys.

My dreams are always like this. I was the game of a young gibbon. He was off in the distance, and I could kind of see him in my dream-haze, but I could clearly hear him hooting in his throat. I ran, Stooge-like, nude save for a bathrobe, but my movements were slow and cumbersome. The gibbon-hunter ran gracefully, on the other hand, with the weird backwards-elbow gait of a newborn foal still slick with mare-juice. He gained ground quickly, and shone with an eerie light, as if his very fur phosphoresced. He was nearly upon me, so I let out a strangled cry and stood still. My arms were raised and hands hung limp in pathetic defense. (Every night, this same dream.)

The gibbon galloped up to me and stopped, and drew himself to full height. He was magnificent! This young male was like a sinewy god of fur and leather. He stood about waist-high, and was shivering with fury. He raised up a fore-arm and snaked out his forefinger, pointing at me. He extended out the arm, touched the finger to my throat, and screamed.

Then, various scenes flashed before me. (This part doesn't usually happen; I usually wake up drenched at this point.) The scenes were of animals eating their own kind -- chimpanzees feeding on other chimpanzees like lions at a zebra corpse, ants swarm-eating ants, snakes swallowing snakes.

Suddenly, I was in a grey concrete room. It seemed damp and cold. Forming a semi-circle around me were kernel developers. Ted Ts'o was death-white, grotesquely fat for some reason, and had small, dark goggles. Alan Cox and Stephen Tweedie were conjoined twins in a single leather outfit. Ralf Flaxa's mouth was held open by a painful-looking iron dentifrice, his teeth chattering mechanically.

Torvalds himself was also dressed in leather. He had nails or something sticking out of his face and bald, snow-white head. I felt afraid, but also felt a strange stirring that wasn't quite fear.

You must do for us, O eSolutions, a granted boon. (This may sound weird, but when he spoke, it sort of had different levels to it, like a synthesizer.)

Then Torvalds went into a seizure for a while, screeching and growling with his eyes locked on mine. When he stopped, he began again: A boon, yes, for that is your lot. You must go to the Adequacy, and at the Adequacy gather up the questions, the ten highest-rated, and only those. So have I spoken onto you. YEEEAAAAAH! At this point, he had raised up the palms of his hands, and as he screamed, pain shot through me, and I envisioned this huge pile of menstruating corpses on a misty field. (Weird!) Then he said, Go now, do our bidding, horrid one, yea, damned one. We will return for you and your puny questions in time.

given this golden chance I can not think in any question for Mr Linux Torvalds other than this one:
How the hell did you get rid of the penguin infestation there in Finland? we are suffering a cockroaches plague here in Spain and maybe your expertise could be of some help. By the way, we're in a urge for humanitarian aid as well, mainly morphine and nurses.

and how did u get ur degrees in an easter egg (none / 0) (#5)

by Anonymous Reader on Wed Aug 28th, 2002 at 08:45:07 AM PST

penguins habitat the south pole and even if they were livin on the northpole finlands to hot.

"...I would assume since he called the penguins in Finland an "infestation," the birds are not a native species."
Everyone knows penguins were introduced in Finland by South Africans. They were refugees escaped from Robben Island, a few miles from Cape Town. This prison was famous because Nelson Mandela was kept there for more than 20 years. The prisoners brought a few penguins with them in the small boat they used to scape, and feeded on their flesh until arrived to Finland. Some of the remaining penguins managed to scape from the boat and breed. Almost every infestation all over the world started this way, see rabbits and rats in Australia, or snakes in New Zealand.

It is well known that the mere mention of your first name turns a certain Free/GNU hippie into a frothingly rabid maniac.

I have spent many frustrated hours attempting to operate your sub-standard software. These hours came from the very best years of my life! I feel I deserve monetary compensation. Yet the "disclaimer of warranty" in the GNU/General Public License forbids me from suing you.

Some day, a rage-filled RMS will retroactively change the terms of the GNU/GPL, allowing wronged users like myself to collect all your money and even claim custody of your first-born child.

So my question is, what approximately is your net worth?_
_
Do you suffer from late-night hacking? Ask your doctor about Protonix.

Even if the license was changed all software released before the change would still be under the old license.

The authors could pull it or simply release it under the terms of say the GPL 1.0 or develop a similar license with the same warranty clause.

Besides what's so different between that warranty and the one in most commercial licenses? Take Microsoft for example. If you install any one of their products and it were to hose your entire world wide corporate network...Microsoft cannot be held responsible.

Could someone draw up a family tree showing how all these communist/criminal hackers are related? I think the world would be a safer place if we understood the axis of evil behind the free software mask.
o Linus Torvaldes
o Linux Torvalds
o Lunix Tovaldis
o Lunis Stallman
o etc

It is a widely accepted fact that the creation that bears your name, the Lenux operating system, has been and is most likely currently being used for all sorts of nefarious purposes.

Given the nature of the thing it is easy to see why Lenux is the choice of those who wish to cause harm to others. Essentially, Lenux can be modified by anyone with time and scant knowledge of the Perl programming language to do just about anything short of anything anyone might call work, or anything approximating being easy to use. The normal security features embedded into proprietary operating systems that prevent things like ping floods, or copyrighted CD ripping, or development of super biotoxins, are either conspicuously absent from your product or can easily be defeated. This is why you read accounts of US soldiers raiding caves in Afghanistan that are full of computers running Lenux. Can't you take a cue from Microsoft, who removed the World Trade Center from future versions of Flight Simulator?

To get to my question, what kind of person would unleash upon mankind the ends to his own destruction? You really should stand up and be counted among the terrorists who contributed to the September 11th attack, although that seems to be too little too late considering you should already be in jail for the role you no doubt played in the Columbine tragedy. And before that there was Oklahoma City. And the first bombing of the World Trade Center. Figure in the fact that your operating system no doubt played a role in the planning of the USS Cole bombing, Olympic Park in Atlanta, various Embassy explosions over the past several years, Ruby Ridge, Waco, the downfall of communism, and the general geekiness that grips the geek community. If those people didn't have to spend so much time altering obscure lines in obscure text files just to get their MBR to function properly maybe they wouldn't be so angry.

Face it, you suck and so does your operating system. You have probably had a hand in the murders of thousands, if not zillions, of people. Terrorists use your code to send the messages about who to kill next. Little kids sit in their rooms at night and cry because they don't have cut and paste, but their Windows using next door neighbor peers do.

When GNU/Linux first came out, it was a smash hit. However, nowaday Linux is barely usable compared to its commercial counterpart. Is the decline of quality in Open Source Software due to the downward spiral of the communist lifestyle, the increased effort by Microsoft to maintain its marketshare, or have you simply lost interest in your little hobby?

P.S. How can you have a wife, let alone a son, if you're still a virgin?Guardian angel, heavenly friend, walk with me 'til the journey's end.

How do you feel about big computer companies like Apple and Microsoft taking your admittedly inferior "Open Source" and using it in their products without giving you credit? Are you ashamed that consumers will be using crappy free software when they are paying for code developed with only the highest standards? Are you afraid of being sued for it?

How do you feel about big computer companies like Apple and Microsoft taking your admittedly inferior "Open Source" and using it in their products without giving you credit?

Linus Torvalds didn't create open source. He is not responsible for it. So what credit do Apple and Microsoft have to give to Torvalds?

You can find credit given to the authors all over both open and closed source programs. Take Internet Explorer for example. If you click on Help >> About Internet Explorer you get the following:

Based on NCSA Mosaic. NCSA Mosaic(TM); was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Distributed under a licensing agreement with Spyglass, Inc.

Why won't you move the core kernel maintenance team to some free country, preferably some without terrorist training camps and tendency to apply export control laws to software, retroactively, and at a whim?

Then the crypto patches and FreeS/WAN could become parts of the kernel itself, instead of having to be supplied as external patches.

It's all about the marketing. The professional and technical merits of a particular solution don't matter one whit. Given time and intereset, "supercomputer clusters" could be built using shoe laces and tin cans.

Although, I'll agree with you on one thing -- the people in charge of Linux have a very keen marketing sense. Given minimal investment and practically no real-world support, they were able to promote Linux from a useless toy project into something that is actually used for solving real problems. (And, most importantly, without improving Linux's quality in the process!) Quite a neat trick -- if I knew how to something like that, I'd be a millionaire already.

The professional and technical merits of a particular solution don't matter one whit.

Except if you aren't one of those on its end, or those that are doomed to dance around it and keep it working. Then the marketing becomes irrelevant for you, or serves well as a fuel for your hate towards the particular solution in question.

Given time and intereset, "supercomputer clusters" could be built using shoe laces and tin cans.

Russian ones maybe. On the other hand, they would be EMP-hardened. I'd definitely love to see such machine.

Quite a neat trick -- if I knew how to something like that, I'd be a millionaire already.

You wouldn't. After Billionaire Bill would notice you, he'd buy you out, or squish you like a cockroach. Because there can be only One.

Sure anyone is replaceable. Whether you're blue-collar or white-collar you can be replaced. It's a lot easier though to switch out one MCSE for another. Finding someone knowledgeable about multiple platforms are large corporate networks is another story.

Anything that doesn't bring in an immediate profit is irrelevant.

This is exactly why you are not a millionare. Immediate profits are used to pay for larger more expensive projects where the returns are much higher.

I'm not being technical and trying to refer to just the kernel when I say Linux. Nor am I refering solely to the "GNU/Linux" system. I mean everything: the kernel, GNU, X, KDE, GNOME, the distros. All the shit a normal person associates with Linux.

so.. (none / 0) (#56)

by Anonymous Reader on Fri Sep 6th, 2002 at 11:29:53 AM PST

And what about linux sucks?

is it the blue screens, crashes, or the ... oh wait.. that's windows..

please retract the above comment of mine. It has been VANDALISED and DISFIGURED by some lowly janitor who erroneously believes it is "funny" to swap the word "Linus" with the word "Linux", and even "funnier" to attribute this moronic idiocy to my good self. My good reputation and standing in this community has been measurably lowered by this deliberate act of sabotage -- I would not wish to be known as a low-life cretin who "humourously" misrepresents people's real names. Please remove the defaced comment within 24 hours or I shall be forced to consult m'learned friends.

The same mysterious semi-Thue rewrite occured in the title and body of this article. The word "roasted" was also magically inserted -- which is okay, I *was* sucking off a burn victim.

Keep in mind that they edit your comments because they love you. It's their way of showing that you're on their mind. If you just put up with it, eventually, someday, they'll learn the error of their ways.

-------
You wanna play the blind man, go walk with a Shepherd. But me, my eyes are wide fuckin' open.

You have failed. (none / 0) (#49)

by Anonymous Reader on Tue Sep 3rd, 2002 at 02:47:40 PM PST

That was not at all interesting, funny, informative, clever, distinguished, or memorable. In fact, I've already forgotten about it.

As has all other governments that use the GNU/Linus Operating System, which proves that only governments that support terrorism use the GNU/Linus Operating System.

Fact: George Bush I, as head of the CIA, was responsible for funding Osama Bin Laden in the 80's.

The Japanese were part of the allies in World War I, yet you never hear you stupid fucks blame the Allies in World War II for supporting a member of the Dark Axis countries. Get with the times jerk off.

You're such an idiot that you should be imprisoned.Guardian angel, heavenly friend, walk with me 'til the journey's end.

...I will choose being a terrorist over having to cope with blue screens and unreliable proprietary software.

affirmitive (none / 0) (#55)

by Anonymous Reader on Fri Sep 6th, 2002 at 11:25:58 AM PST

roger that.

Why did you even bother? (none / 0) (#51)

by Anonymous Reader on Wed Sep 4th, 2002 at 04:11:50 PM PST

It seems curious that you would have spent hours of your life "hacking" together a barely functional kernel for a Unix-like operating system. What was the point? The far superior BSD was already floating about, and Microsoft and Apple already had usable and viable alternatives to a Unix rip-off. Even IBM was clever enough to try something different with OS/2. So what were you thinking? Did you think it would help you get girls or something?

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